Summer, Sprinklers, and Broken Legs

Summer has hit the Quad Cities and we are loving it!!   Well....for the most part :)  Sure there are the some bugs, sweltering humidity, and occasional super scary thunderstorms but it's nice to finally be able to play outside.  Colton has been loving having a back yard and getting to play on the swingset, run through the sprinklers, playing with bubbles and sidewalk chalk, and even just running around growling at the dogs across the fence.  I have to admit that I've even had some fun running through the sprinklers myself.  It brings back warm fuzzy memories from childhood.  We love our home here and all of our wonderful friends!

He got thirsty with all his playing.

Recent pic of Katie being her cute self!

We also love being in driving distance of some of Jon's family in MN.   We decided we were a little burnt out a couple weeks ago and we took a trip up to visit family.   Colton loved the big rope swing and trampoline and playing with his cousins.  Jon and I had fun spending time with the adults and getting to relax a little.  Some of the weekend events included grilling steaks, late night appetizers at Applebees, Jenna taking me to a spin class (SO HARD!!!), Jon golfing with Mike and Mark, basketball competition with Mark and Jenna, Jenna giving me a manicure, and lots more fun!  Our only complaint was that the weekend is too short!

Swinging at Grandma's!

Colton LOVED this!

Updates!!

Jon: Jon just finished his CPA exam!!  Yay!!  We are so happy and I'm so proud of him!  It's a four part exam with 4 different tests that need to be passed within an 18-month span, so Jon decided to stretch them out.  It sure is nice to have those out of the way and Jon's enjoying not having that in the back of his mind anymore!

Emmalee:  I feel like I'm finally getting back in shape!  I feel better, my clothes are fitting better and I have more energy.  I've been able to run up to 5 miles at a time so far and have also been doing some P90X and Tae Bo work outs throughout the week.  I've been really good about not having sweets and exercising 45min-1hr 4-5 times a week.  It's quite frustrating that the weight is still pretty slow to come off, I still have about 11 pounds to go but I'll try to be patient and hopefully I'll just keep going down!

Colton: Colton is getting better at saying words and understanding things.  He currently loves dinosaurs and is frequently running around the house growling at all of us.  He loves his little sister and is always giving kisses, both to Kate and us.  He's going through a bit of a stubborn phase and thinks he doesn't want to take naps anymore, but mom will win this fight.  I will NOT give up nap time!

Colton "helping" me bake.

KISSES!

Katelyn: Katelyn's sad update is that she broke her leg about a week and a half ago.  I feel so bad and completely guilty about it but I'm grateful it wasn't worse.  I tend to put Katie's bouncer up on the counter when I am working in the kitchen because she likes being able to see me and because Colton is always climbing all over her when she is on the ground.  We have a really wide/large counter so I've never seen it as dangerous, but on that morning I forgot to buckle her in and she wiggled herself down and fell out of the bouncer, off the counter, and hit the kitchen floor.  I saw her fall but couldn't get there soon enough to catch her.  She hit, what looked to be, on her bum and then fell back and hit her head.  She immediately started screaming and I rushed over and scooped her up.  I felt so horrible!!  It didn't look like she hit that hard so at first I just thought she was scared.  I held and bounced her for about half an hour before she finally settled down and fell asleep in the swing.  She slept for about an hour and a half and then woke up happy.  I was relieved thinking we had dodged a bullet!  I picked her up and started feeding her and about 2 minutes in she pulled away and started screaming again.  I tried to get her to keep eating but she wouldn't stop screaming.  All distressed I called Jon at work and he decided to come home to help me out.  When Jon got home, Kate was still screaming so Jon stayed with Colton and I took her to the doctor.  When I got there, the doctors were all out of the office so a nurse looked at her.  She didn't tell me much besides that she couldn't see or find any bumps or bruises on her (which I already knew) and I could wait a couple hours for the doctor to look at her or take her to an urgent care.  I decided to just take her to the Trinity emergency room.  There the doctors spent all their time focusing on her head and spine, even so far as to give her a CT scan.  I was grateful for this because I wanted to know that nothing was wrong with her head, but I also told them several times that I didn't think her head was bothering her.  It didn't look like she hit it that hard and it seemed like her bum or the lower part of her was hurting.  She screamed the most when I was changing her diaper.  I asked if they thought anything could be broken like her tail bone or something and they said, "It's REALLY hard for babies to break their bones and even if she did break her tail bone, there's nothing we could do for it."  I asked why she was crying so hard then, and they said it was just cause she got bumped up a little.  I took her home and when she still wouldn't stop screaming, Jon started poking around and discovered it was her left leg that seemed to be hurting her.  We decided to take her back in to the doctor's office.  This time the doctor was in and examined her.  He agreed that something in her leg was bothering her and sent us back to the Trinity emergency room for xrays.  We got xrays and then waited around for half an hour for the results(throughout this whole day, katie pretty much never stopped screaming).  When they game back they said that Katie had fractured her left femur, just above the knee.  We were then sent about 20 min across town to Genesis West Emergency room where we waited another 45 min to an hour for the on-call doctor to show up and then he put her leg in a cast.  She was so much better after her leg was casted and I could tell she was exhausted, she fell right asleep when we put her in the carseat.  We didn't get home until almost 10:00pm, about 13 hours after it happened.    All in all it was probably the worst day ever.  We are so grateful that the injury wasn't worse though and that they were able to finally figure out what was wrong and help her to feel better.  Kate has been such a trooper with the cast.  I can tell it bothers her sometimes, but for the most part she is still her smiley-happy self.  She is an incredibly sweet and loving little girl and I am so glad that we have her in our lives!

Poor broken leg!

She still has her smile though!